Last night I was sitting with my wife at a soccer game and feeling very antsy about getting out on the river, as the recent rains have made it almost impossible to wade, and a swing by the old fishing hole verified that things were finally calming down. Well, my son Shane wanted to watch the rest of the soccer match, so I kissed my wife on her cute little forehead and took off.
The river was extremely high, fast, and clouded, and very difficult to fish, but I managed to get a few "barely legal" smallies and a sunfish. It was a beautiful evening, and I was just enjoying the show that the purple martins were putting on over my head, dive bombing a late hex hatch. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a bit of activity and turned to see a bunch of minnows breaking the surface on the usually non productive shallow side of the river. I waited, and sure enough a minute later another commotion, this time superceded by a large wake.
I quick like bit off my bead head bugger and tied a sneeky pete on in a size 8. I placed a nice 40 footer at about 12 oclock and gave it a couple twitches and was pleasantly rewarded with a huge surface strike. a couple minutes later released the respectable 16" smallie. Well, it just so happened that I noticed two fish going for that cast, so never to be the one to look a gifthorse, I repeated the cast, only to get another huge strike, this time the fish swirled and sucked it straight down...another 5 minute battle, and released another 16 incher. I repeated this several more times, catching and releasing two more nice bass, and all of this action within a half hour! Probably the most fun I've had this summer, and in retrospect it would have been a great night to have gotten my son to go, but it wasn't to be. When I told him about it he was pretty excited so I think next time if it's a choice between watching his big brother play soccer and going fishing he may be taking me up on it!!
Tight lines and good knots!!
Bill

Quentin

08-29-2007, 09:19 PM

Nice! Smallies are awesome! There are a few places where I fish that have smallmouths, but I haven't found many this year. Definitely one of my favorite species :cool: .